Father without destroying the unity of God.  Sabellianism did it at the cost of his premundane and real personality, and therefore by common consent was out of the question.  The Easterns were more inclined to theories of subordination, to distinctions of the derivatively from the absolutely divine, and to views of Christ as a sort of secondary God.  Such theories do not really meet the difficulty.  A secondary God is necessarily a second God.  Thus heathenism still held the key of the position, and constantly threatened to convict them of polytheism.  They could not sit still, yet they could not advance without remodelling their central doctrine of the divine nature to agree with revelation.  Nothing could be done till the Trinity was placed inside the divine nature.  But this is just what they could not for a long time see.  These men were not Arians, for they recoiled in genuine horror from the polytheistic tendencies of Arianism; but they had no logical defence against Arianism, and were willing to see if some modification of it would not give them a foothold of some kind.  To men who dreaded the return of Sabellian confusion, Arianism was at least an error in the right direction.  It upheld the same truth as they—­the separate personality of the Son of God—­and if it went further than they could follow, it might still do service against the common enemy.

[Sidenote:  Arianism at Alexandria.]

Thus the new theory made a great sensation at Alexandria, and it was not without much hesitation and delay that Alexander ventured to excommunicate his heterodox presbyter with his chief followers, like Pistus, Carpones, and the deacon Euzoius—­all of whom we shall meet again.  Arius was a dangerous enemy.  His austere life and novel doctrines, his dignified character and championship of ’common sense in religion,’ made him the idol of the ladies and the common people.  He had plenty of telling arguments for them.  ’Did the Son of God exist before his generation?’ Or to the women, ’Were you a mother before you had a child?’ He knew also how to cultivate his popularity by pastoral visiting—­his enemies called it canvassing—­and by issuing a multitude of theological songs ‘for sailors and millers and wayfarers,’ as one of his admirers says.  So he set the bishop at defiance, and more than held his ground against him.  The excitement spread to every village in Egypt, and Christian divisions became a pleasant subject for the laughter of the heathen theatres.

[Sidenote:  And elsewhere.]

The next step was to secure outside support.  Arius betook himself to Caesarea in Palestine, and thence appealed to the Eastern churches generally.  Nor did he look for help in vain.  His doctrine fell in with the prevailing dread of Sabellianism, his personal misfortunes excited interest, his dignified bearing commanded respect, and his connection with the school of Lucian secured him learned and influential sympathy.  Great Syrian bishops like those of Caesarea, Tyre, and Laodicea gave him more or less encouragement; and when the old Lucianist Eusebius of Nicomedia held a council in Bithynia to demand his recall, it became clear that the controversy was more than a local dispute.  Arius even boasted that the Eastern bishops agreed with him, ’except a few heretical and ill-taught men,’ like those of Antioch and Jerusalem.